Color and Relax Tuesday - Sunflowers

I always think the most summery of flowers is the sunflower. When I was growing up, my mom always had sunflowers in her garden beds. I have always loved them. I love that you can find them in various sizes, even as cut flowers, plus they come in different colors as well. But my ultimate favorite is the "old fashioned" yellow/gold sunflower. There is nothing quite like seeing an entire field of sunflowers! 

I chose this picture to color, to give homage to the humble sunflower! 

I chose blue and yellow because they look well together, and I had a lot of sunflowers and sky to color. {smile} I did not want a "clown party" so I kept a limited palette. And I despise coloring insects so I colored them to look like metal instead of insect-y colors. 

Let's talk about limited palette for a second. By limited, I mean I limit the shades of color I use. I still use a lot of color and a lot of pencils, but I don't use every color in the box! For this project I chose yellow, blue, green, brown, and metallic. 

The book where I found the picture is by a new to me author, and I chose the United Kingdom version of the book instead of the American version. I had heard some folks fussing about the pages falling out of the American version, and heavens above, we don't want THAT! I purchased from The Book Depository HERE. This version and the American version are also available on Amazon. The book is about $12 currently, is approximately 10" x 10" and contains 96 pictures on double-sided pages.The paper is a bit on the thinner side, maybe 65# or so. The paper is also smooth and bright white.

I chose colored pencils because they work best for me when coloring directly in a coloring book. They don't bleed through to the picture on the backside, which is what Copics would do. This paper was too thin to accept any water mediums with me at the helm! So...colored pencils won the day.

I chose a new, never been used set out of my stash. These Cezanne pencils from Creative Mark are available on Amazon sometimes, but also on Jerry's Artarama. The 120 set is $30 right now! And some colors are also available open stock in packs of six for $3.49. A friend of mine acquired these and didn't want them so she sold them to me on the cheap! {Thanks, Becky!}

I decided to do some process shots since this was a test drive of the pencils and the book. I did not have very high expectations of these pencils, since they are a budget pencil. At $30, that is about 25 cents per pencil, about the same price as Crayola. 

The book contains unique mandala style artwork, which I have not really done before. I saw a flip through of the book and thought some of the pictures looked very cool, but I was worried that the line art was too heavy. I decided to buy the book anyway, and also a second book (why not, right?) by this author, Melpomeni Chatzipanagiotou who is a pen and ink artist from Greece. 

Cezanne pencils come in a lovely array of colors. I was able to find great yellows and golds for my sunflower. I was not sure how they would behave on the smooth paper, but they did very well. I was also a bit worried about the heavy black lines of the artwork. Sometimes the ink can smear with certain pencil brands. But...again, no problem!

I colored the sunflower first to see how the pencils would perform, and to give me a starting point for the rest of this very busy page. The Cezanne pencils layered color pretty nicely, and I was able to get lots of layers on this smooth paper...which was a shocker! 

I was pleased with the greens in this pencil set, but not as happy with the blue selections. At this point in the process I almost stopped! There is a lot going on in this picture, and it has...bugs. As I said, I really don't like to color insects!

I kept going, and filled in all the blue and other background items. It was then that I decided to make all the connecting bits into metal gears and the like. I was worried about finding colors for metal in this set, but boy...it turned out so well! I was really happy with the page at this point. (But still worried about those flying critters!)

At this stage I was not only very happy with the project, but madly in love with the Cezanne pencils! I want to thank (again) my friend Becky for including them in a haul box she sent me! I had very low expectations considering the price point, but was I blown away. 

I always have mixed feelings when I fall in love with a budget pencil set that either has no, or limited, open stock! Because it makes it hard to replace the pencils I use up! It is easy to replace my more expensive brands because I can buy just the few I need from most art supply stores. But these budget beauties...sometimes it is easiest to shop sales and re-buy the whole set. 

For those of you who wish to know the colors I chose for the metal objects...here goes. You can try to match the colors with your favorite set to get a similar result.

Brass: 85 Van Dyke Brown, 88 Mustard, 14 Naples Yellow Deep, 121 Green Gold, 118 Cream

Copper: 59 Burnt Umber, 68 Mars Red, 84 Brick, 22 Mars Yellow, 73 Sunshine, 81 Lettuce

I create the effect of metal by layering color and making sure to keep some highlight areas very light to mimic the shine of metal.

I ended up making those pesky insects into metal bugs. I do wish I had made them a tad lighter, more like gold, but...what's done is done!

The only place where I thought I had a bit of smearing of the black line art was in the pale blue areas. And...I think the culprit was actually the Prismacolor white pencil that I used over the light areas! 

I hope you enjoyed today's picture. If you have neglected art supplies, drag them out and give them a try! Experiment with different papers and different styles to see if you can fall in love! 

Come back the end of the week for some paper craft projects! Until then, stay cool and hydrated!